Random facts: This is the colourful village of Qaqortoq, Greenland, looking so beautiful in the snow. The image caught my eye immediately and gave me a cozy feeling. A quaint village with all the neighbours in walking distance. Maybe exchanging zucchini in the appropriate season. Maybe having to lock their doors from receiving too many zucchini presents. Sound familiar?
And when I read about the history of the colours, I thought you all might be interested too. An interesting historical fact from an interesting place in the world.
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The Color-coding of the houses in Greenland
In colonial times, a color-coding system was introduced to the houses in Greenland. Later, GTO (Greenland’s Technical Organisation) stuck with this color-coding which made it easy to identify the function of a building.
Let’s say someone had fallen ill in a settlement or on a traveling ship. Then, upon arriving in a town in Greenland, whoever was helping this person would take a look at the town and go straight for a yellow building, simply because they knew that yellow buildings would house either a hospital or be the private home of the town doctor.
This was practical and, for a long time, the colors of the houses in Greenland stuck to this regime:
Red buildings would signify churches, schools, teachers’ or ministers’ houses, and trade, yellow colors were assigned to hospitals, doctors, and health care personnel.
Green houses and buildings were assigned to power works, auto mechanics, teleoperations, and such. Blue buildings and housing were related to the fish factories and police stations were black.
Today, this system is no longer in use, and we paint our houses in any color we like. So now you will find purple, pink, and any pastel color on the houses. While walking around Nuussuaq, the large suburb of Nuuk, you sometimes feel like you’re wandering inside a candy factory, as there are houses of any color.
This information is from VisitGreenland.com
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Now here's a question for you. Without the aforementioned system in place, what colour would you paint your house in our cozy little village? I think I would go for a blue.
I love the bright green on the left. This is so cute!
Blue for me, even though my fishing knowledge is pretty much limited to eating the product of someone else’s work.
I would go for a pastel, such as blue-lavender with a navy trim.